


You'll Always Have Me

by Lucy_Claire



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-14 00:04:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5722129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucy_Claire/pseuds/Lucy_Claire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For years, Armin believed he would one day reunite with his parents but when he finds out they're never coming back just like all the others they have lost, it's becomes too much to handle. Eren steps in to remind him that no matter how many people they lose, he'll never lose him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Always Have Me

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: 'I'm sorry, I didn't know' requested by Tumblr user connie-mellet

Despite what people might think of him recently, especially since things got more treacherous and dangerous within the walls as they did outside them, Armin didn’t lose sight of what was important or lose any of his senses.

In short, just because he put some things to back of his mind doesn’t mean he stopped caring or even hoping.

For most of the new Team Levi, they had all acknowledged that they were orphans or, in Christa’s case, estranged from whatever family they had left. Only Jean had his mother left and only Armin still believed his parents were still out there. Holding on that belief, that Arnold and Trude Arlert were still traveling the world, seeing new things and discovering others, documenting them so they could bring all that knowledge back to him one day, was what kept him going no matter how dark it got, no matter how many times he nearly lost Eren and no matter how many people he actually lost. But when he found himself facing undeniable proof that they were never exploring the world or coming back was what undid everything for him.

Armin sank to his knees on the grass and picked up the backpack his father had worn the day he and his mother slipped past the guards and went out the wall. It had the charm of a pigeon feather attached to it, still intact and not weathered by travel, and next to Armin in the mud was his mother’s sunhat. Both were near aged brown splatters of blood and the dead grass that Titans left in their wake.

His breathing came in fast panting breaths as his fingers stroked the rough, old, dusty material of his father’s bag, so many different scenarios of how they were caught and how they died rushed through his mind, taking bits and parts from every death he’d witnessed between the teeth of the Titans.

It wasn’t until he brushed the ribbon around his mother’s hat did the vividness of his own interrupted fate at a Titan’s mouth come back in overwhelming vividness. It was two years ago, he was stuck in this same position, in shock and in full-body numbness after watching the person he cared about and depended on the most after losing his grandfather get cut down by Titan and land, motionless, on the roof of the house ahead of him. The bearded Titan stomped over, plucked him off the roof and threw him into his giant, slimy mouth, making it too hard for him to climb back now that he gained control of his limbs and further slipped down, down, down the dark inside of its body.

A hand clutched his arm and Armin looked up. What he saw in his memory and what he saw standing above him now kept moving in and out of focus, merging with one another so the hand that clutched his elbow and the face that looked down at him, lit by the light that came from the sun hanging up behind him, was enough to distract him from his climbing panic attack.

Armin breathed out a shaky breath and closed his eyes again, the reel in his mind rushing through Eren pulling him out of the Titan’s mouth, tossing him onto the roof and taking his place. When Armin reached his own arm out for him the Titan’s teeth slammed shut, severing Eren’s arm as it swallowed him. Tears stung his eyes and flowed out like an open tap, just like they did that very day and his arm went limp in Eren’s grip.

“Armin,” Eren said, kneeling in front of him, still holding his arm. “Armin, look at me.”

Armin shook his lowered head, hugging his father’s bag closer to his chest.

Eren pushed his thick bangs off his head and stroked his brow with his thumb. “Open your eyes, come on.”

“I can’t.”

“Then try to talk to me. Tell me what happened?”

Armin opened his eyes, his sight blurred with tears, and only saw their knees on the grass. “Remember what I said about my parents? How they were traveling the world and coming back?”

“Yeah.”

“Eren. They’re never coming back, Eren.” Armin rubbed at his eyes as he finally met Eren’s, even through Armin’s wet gaze he could see the concern in his big green eyes. “All this time I thought they were still out there but they didn’t make it a week beyond the walls.”

Eren let go of his arm and wrapped both his around Armin’s shoulders, pulling him into a hug, resting his chin on Armin’s head. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

Armin buried his face in Eren’s shoulder and released the bag to wrap his arms around Eren’s waist, to hold himself up as he shook with loud, throaty sobs. “They’re not coming back. They’re not coming back. When I lost Grandpa I knew he was never coming back to me but I still thought…still hoped that they would, that I would still have them in the end. Now I don’t have anybody left.”

Eren pulled back and tipped Armin’s face up by his chin. “You still have me.”

“For how long? Everyone’s always dying.”

That suggestion alone seemed to enrage Eren, pulling his brows together in a defiant frown and tightening his hold on Armin’s shoulder. “You’ll _always_ have me.”

The tears stopped, Armin blinked the rest away as he calmed his breathing. “You can’t promise that.”

“Like hell I can’t. You’ll have me whether you like it or not.”

Armin laughed once, a tired, half-hearted sound of nervousness. “I like it, I do.”

Eren helped him up and slung the backpack on his own back and offered Armin his hand. Armin put on his mother’s sunhat, it still smelled like her, just slightly, and that was the only comfort that he could get, that this was the last part that remained of her, but when he took Eren’s hand and let him lead him back to camp, he thought back to the day he thought he lost him for good and squeezed the hand that pulled him out of harm’s way and then grew back time and time again so it could hold him back again.

He would always have Eren, Eren was too stubborn to die and too stubborn to ever leave him.

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment!
> 
> Follow me on [Tumblr](http://lucyclairedelune.tumblr.com) ^_^


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